There was an inter-faith ecumenical prayer meeting in the Vatican with Catholic Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople (Eastern, also known as Greek, Orthodox), Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan (who is a Palestinian and is also president of the Lutheran World Federation, http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/palestinian-lutheran-bishop-to-pray-with-pope-francis-israeli-and-palestinian-presidents-25077), the Jewish Israeli President Shimon Peres, and the Muslim Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas:

June 8, 2014

Francis’s bold move has managed to bring together the two presidents shows his desire to engage political leaders, offering inter-religious dialogue as a building block.

Pope Francis and the two presidents sat at the corner of the triangle where the two hedges met.

Along the hedge to their left sat what the Vatican described as “political” members of the Israeli and Palestinian delegations, including both nations’ ambassadors to the Holy See; Christian religious leaders, including Patriarch Bartholomew, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem and Palestinian Lutheran Bishop Monib Younan; and musicians who performed between prayers during the ceremony.

Along the other hedge sat various Muslim, Jewish and Druze religious figures, including Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Omar Abboud, long-standing friends of the Pope from Buenos Aires and leaders respectively in their city’s Jewish and Muslim communities, who accompanied Pope Francis during his visit to the Holy Land.

Members of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations and guests of Pope Francis read a selection of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers, in order of their religions’ historical precedence. Each set of prayers praised God for creation, begged forgiveness of sins and asked for peace in the Holy Land.

Although the Bible says to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6) and many think that ecumenical unity is a good thing, the Bible warns about an end time unity involving a Babylonian religious system (Zechariah 2:6-12; Revelation 13-14, 17-19)–also, the passage in Isaiah 11:6 about the wolf and lamb does not get fulfilled until the millennium.

As far as inter-faith prayer meetings go, notice what a Catholic priest wrote about an earlier prayer meeting involving Pope John Paul II (apparently the one in 2002) and then something else he wrote:

Priest Paul Kramer (21st century): The prayer meeting that took place in Assisi is something that merited the Divine vengeance even though God, in His mercy, is still patient. But He manifested His anger in the form of a destructive earthquake shortly after the Pope gathered with the pagans to pray together to his God, and for them to pray to their gods.

The First Commandment says: Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me, yet the Pope invited the pagans to come in and pray to their idols. And the idol of Buddha was placed upon the tabernacle, the consecrated altar, in Assisi. The church was thus desecrated, by this act of pagan worship, in the place that had been dedicated and consecrated to God for the sacred service, the divine service, of the eternal Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, which is the only fit act of worship whereby the divine Victim is offered to the divine Godhead.

The Pope invited all the practitioners of false religions into the sacred Catholic premises to practice all the absurdities and abominations of the mystery of Babylon, in the Holy Place. (Kramer P. The Abomination: The Desecration of Fatima. Fatima Crusader, 75. Winter 2004).

Priest Paul Kramer (21st century): All the fury of {hades} will be let loose upon the earth in order to attempt to dethrone Christ the King and install satan in His place — it will be the culmination of the ‘mystery of iniquity’ represented in the figure of the Tower of Babel — the apocalyptic ‘mystery of Babylon’: the counterfeit ‘church’, the ‘church of heresy’ and its ‘pope’. (Kramer P. The Third Secret Reveals the Great Chastisement. Fatima Crusader, 77. Summer 2004).

Notice also the following:

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, Peres, and Francis will be joined by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders…

While I believe that the start of the one world religion began earlier, the events of today were a significant step. Also, the deal of Daniel 9:27 will come to pass and it is likely that the Vatican will be involved in it (see also The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27). As far as Pope Francis goes, he either is the last pope, the False Prophet, antipope, and final Antichrist, or he is setting the stage for this. It may be that the Red Horseman of war would ride in the Fall. Details of the ‘end of the world’ are being played out now.

Notice also:

June 8, 2024

Pope Francis on Sunday told the Israeli and Palestinian presidents that they “must respond” to their people’s yearning for peace in the Middle East and find “the strength to persevere undaunted in dialogue.”

The Pope is telling political leaders some of what he feels that they must do. Looking like a lamb to the world, but often speaking like a dragon (cf. Revelation 13:11).

Some Catholic writers and seers have also warned against a coming ecumenical and inter-faith leader from the Vatican:

Priest O’Connor (20th century?): This final false prophet will be a bishop of the church and will lead all religions into becoming one. (The False Prophet. Living in the Final Generation. http://www.geocities.com/rebornempowered/ApparitionsofMary.htm 10/12/07)

Josyp Terelya (1992) I saw the new Babylon, the red city that was falling into the earth. In that city, under a Christian temple was a secret hiding place. (Leonard P. Priest. Has the Pope Fulfilled Our Lady of Fatima’s Request? Fatima Crusader, 43. Winter 1993).

Anna-Katarina Emmerick (October 1, 1820): The Church is in great danger…The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks are to spread everywhere. I now see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for the destruction, even the clergy. A great destruction is now at hand…

(April 22, 1823): I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was admitted in it in order to be united and to have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church (Dupont, pp. 66, 71).

Oba Prophecy: It will come when the Church authorities issue directives to support a new cult, when priests are forbidden to celebrate in any other, when the highest positions in the Church are given to perjurers and hypocrites, when only the renegades are admitted to occupy those positions.

Nun Anna-Katarina Emmerick (19th century): I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it…

Yves Dupont (writer interpreting A. Emmerick above), They wanted to make a new Church, a Church of human manufacture, but God had other designs. (Dupont, pp. 115

Monsignor Charles Pope (May 5, 2014) No pope, no council, no Synod, and no priest in any confessional has any right or capacity to set aside Divine Law. (Pope C. The Church Cannot Change Her Doctrine on Marriage and Divorce. Concerns for the Upcoming Synod. May 4, 2014. http://blog.adw.org/2014/05/the-church-cannot-change-her-doctrine-on-marriage-and-divorce-concerns-for-the-upcoming-synod/)

Jeanne le Royer (died 1798): One day I heard a voice which said, ‘The new Constitution will appear to many other than what it really is. They will bless it as a gift from heaven; whereas it is really a gift from {haydes} and permitted by God in His just wrath. It will only be by its effects that people will be led to recognize the Dragon who wanted to destroy all and devour all (Dupont, p. 53).

Whether this is a reference to some type of power agreement with the Beast (Revelation 17:12-13) or the ecumenical council (cf. Revelation 13:1-4), notice that it is expected to be satanic (Satan is the Dragon, per Revelation 12:9).

Joel Osteen met with Pope Francis in 2014 (in his case, June 5th) and is pleased with the Pope’s ecumenical agenda:

Joel Osteen, the pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church, was meeting Thursday with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Osteen said Friday it was a great honor to represent the pastors of America in the meeting with the pontiff, whom he described as warm, personable and full of joy.

“I like the fact that this pope is trying to make the church larger, not smaller,” Osteen said. “He’s not pushing people out but making the church more inclusive. That resonated with me.”

The unofficial meeting also included Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; former U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne; Tim Timmons, a pastor and author based in Newport Beach, Calif.; and Gayle D. Beebe, president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., according to the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. (Christian C. Osteen meets with Pope Francis at Vatican. June 6, 2014. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Osteen-meets-with-Pope-Francis-at-Vatican-5533805.php viewed 06/008/14)

Joel Osteen has a widely viewed television program and is a best selling author. He mainly preaches self-improvement on his telecast. Yet he is among the more influential Protestant leaders in the USA. More and more Protestants are supporting the Vatican’s ecumenical agenda.

Priest H. Kramer (20th century): In the vision of the Seer now appears a second beast rising out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb but speaking like a dragon…In other places he is called the false prophet…This prophet may re-establish the pagan Roman Empire and build the “Great Harlot”, Babylon… The False Prophet…will persuade all infidels, apostates and apostate nations to worship and adore him…Antichrist “sitteth in the temple of God” (I Thes. II. 4). This is not the ancient Temple in Jerusalem…this temple is shown to be a Catholic Church…The False Prophet will proclaim the resurrection of the Roman Empire. (Kramer H., p. 318,320-323)

Notice the following two reports from another priest:

Priest Paul Kramer (21st century):The errors of Orthodoxy and of Protestantism will be embraced by that false church, it will be an ecumenical church because the Anti-Pope will be recognized by the world—not by the faithful, but by the world—by the secular world and the secular governments. (Kramer P. The Imminent Chastisement for Not Fulfilling Our Lady’s Request. An edited transcript of a speech given at the Ambassadors of Jesus and Mary Seminar in Glendale, California, September 24, 2004.THE FATIMA CRUSADER Issue 80, Summer 2005, pp. 32-45 http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr80/cr80pg32.asp viewed 4/15/08)

Priest Paul Kramer (21st century):The Anti-Pope will be recognized as the legitimate Pope of the “church,” and the legitimate head of the Vatican State. That “church” will be united with all the false religions. They will be united together under the universality of the Masonic umbrella. In that motley ecumenical union will be the established religion of the so-called civilized world. This is how we will get into the time of great persecution such as the world has never seen. (Priest Kramer. As cited by Mario Derksen’s article The Blind Leading the Blind Memo to Chris Ferrara, Father Nicholas Gruner and Father Paul Kramer: Please, please take off the blindfolds! in TRADITIONAL INSIGHTS October 7, 2005 Volume 16, no. 250; http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/05Oct/oct7mdi.htm 10/10/07)

Although some Catholic prophecies and modern Catholics praise a new religious order that seems to be developing, many others indicate that a new type of “Catholicism” will be false to that religion. This also seems to be consistent with an Orthodox understanding of the last false religious power coming from Rome:

Bishop Gerasimos of Abydos (20th century): The army of Antichrist is made up of the worldly powers, mainly the Roman Empire, symbolized by the two beasts and the harlot woman (Rev. 11:7; 13:1-17; cf. Dan. 7:11-12)… The final confrontation with evil is presented in chapters 19 and 20…The war is waged by the beast and the false prophet. Both of these are organs of Satan, representing the political and religious authority of Rome (Rev. 13:1-18). (Gerasimos, Bishop. At the End of Time: The Eschatological Expectations of the Church. Holy Cross Orthodox Press. October 5, 2004, pp. 28-29)

Whatever new order that the Great Monarch (who is to be crowned the leader of the Roman Empire according to other writings) implements with Rome will not be faithful to the teachings of Christ or His original faithful followers.

Therefore a “false pope” is expected, and a great loss of Catholic members to his religion is prophesied.

On May 27, 2012, then Pope Benedict XVI specifically warned that the world was becoming Babel (Babylon) and mentioned the Tower of Babel (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1202209.htm). Yet, it should be realized that there are Roman and Byzantine Catholic prophecies that look forward to Babylon being re-established.

Notice:

Monk Leontios (died 543): Rejoice, oh most unhappy one, oh New Babylon!…You, who are the New Babylon rejoice now on behalf of Zion! New Babylon, dance, bounce and leap greatly, make known even those in Haydes what a Grace you have received. Because that peace which was yours to enjoy in times past, and which God has deprived you of in course of battles, receive it once more from the hand of an Angel…oh, the City of Seven Hills the dominion will be yours. (Tzima Otto, pp. 82-83)

Abbott Joachim (died 1202)…A remarkable Pope will be seated on the pontifical throne, under special protection of the angels. Holy and full of gentleness, he shall undo all wrong, he shall recover the states of the Church, and reunite the exiled temporal powers. As the only Pastor, he shall reunite the Eastern to the Western Church…This holy Pope shall be both pastor and reformer. Through him the East and West shall be in ever lasting concord. The city of Babylon shall then be the head and guide of the world. Rome, weakened in temporal power, shall forever preserve her spiritual dominion, and shall enjoy great peace…At the beginning, in order to bring these happy results, having need of a powerful assistance, this holy Pontiff will ask the cooperation of the generous monarch of France (Great Monarch). (Connor, pp. 31-32)

Despite the fact that the last Pope seemed to warn against certain aspects of Babylon, Europe is trying to become the end time Babylon and the current Pope Francis seems to truly support the construction of a final Babylon.

The Bible warns against end time Babylon (note: the New Jerusalem Bible, a Catholic-approved translation, is shown):

1 One of the seven angels that had the seven bowls came to speak to me, and said, ‘Come here and I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who is enthroned beside abundant waters, 2 with whom all the kings of the earth have prostituted themselves, and who has made all the population of the world drunk with the wine of her adultery.’ 3 He took me in spirit to a desert, and there I saw a woman riding a scarlet beast which had seven heads and ten horns and had blasphemous titles written all over it. 4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and glittered with gold and jewels and pearls, and she was holding a gold winecup filled with the disgusting filth of her prostitution; 5 on her forehead was written a name, a cryptic name: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of all the prostitutes and all the filthy practices on the earth.’ 6 I saw that she was drunk, drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I was completely mystified. (Revelation 17:1-6, NJB)

9 ‘This calls for shrewdness. The seven heads are the seven hills, on which the woman is sitting…18 The woman you saw is the great city which has authority over all the rulers on earth.’ (Revelation 17:9,18, NJB)

1 After this, I saw another angel come down from heaven, with great authority given to him; the earth shone with his glory. 2 At the top of his voice he shouted, ‘Babylon has fallen, Babylon the Great has fallen, and has become the haunt of devils and a lodging for every foul spirit and dirty, loathsome bird. 3 All the nations have drunk deep of the wine of her prostitution; every king on the earth has prostituted himself with her, and every merchant grown rich through her debauchery.’ 4 Another voice spoke from heaven; I heard it say, ‘Come out, my people, away from her, so that you do not share in her crimes and have the same plagues to bear. 5 Her sins have reached up to the sky, and God has her crimes in mind: treat her as she has treated others. 6 She must be paid double the amount she exacted. She is to have a doubly strong cup of her own mixture. 7 Every one of her pomps and orgies is to be matched by a torture or an agony. I am enthroned as queen, she thinks; I am no widow and will never know bereavement. 8 For that, in one day, the plagues will fall on her: disease and mourning and famine. She will be burned to the ground. The Lord God who has condemned her is mighty.’ 9 ‘There will be mourning and weeping for her by the kings of the earth who have prostituted themselves with her and held orgies with her. They see the smoke as she burns, (Revelation 18:1-9, NJB)

Scripture also warns against a coming ecumenical unity which it teaches will be successful:

4 They prostrated themselves in front of the dragon because he had given the beast his authority; and they prostrated themselves in front of the beast, saying, ‘Who can compare with the beast? Who can fight against it?’ 5 The beast was allowed to mouth its boasts and blasphemies and to be active for forty-two months; 6 and it mouthed its blasphemies against God, against his name, his heavenly Tent and all those who are sheltered there. 7 It was allowed to make war against the saints and conquer them, and given power over every race, people, language and nation; 8 and all people of the world will worship it, that is, everybody whose name has not been written down since the foundation of the world in the sacrificial Lamb’s book of life. 9 Let anyone who can hear, listen: 10 Those for captivity to captivity; those for death by the sword to death by the sword. This is why the saints must have perseverance and faith. (Revelation 13:4-10, NJB)

In Zechariah it warns against a coming Babylon and shows that proper unity will not happen until after Jesus returns:

10 Look out! Look out! Flee from the land of the north — Yahweh declares- for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven — Yahweh declares. 11 Look out! Make your escape, Zion, now living with the daughter of Babylon!

12 For Yahweh Sabaoth says this, since the Glory commissioned me, about the nations who plundered you, ‘Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye. 13 Now look, I shall wave my hand over them and they will be plundered by those whom they have enslaved.’ Then you will know that Yahweh Sabaoth has sent me! 14 Sing, rejoice, daughter of Zion, for now I am coming to live among you -Yahweh declares! 15 And on that day many nations will be converted to Yahweh. Yes, they will become his people, and they will live among you. Then you will know that Yahweh Sabaoth has sent me to you! 16 Yahweh will take possession of Judah, his portion in the Holy Land, and again make Jerusalem his choice. (Zechariah 2:12-16, NJB)

The ecumenical and inter-faith movements that the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox leaders are promoting is clearly condemned by the Bible and should not be encouraged.

The prayer meeting between churches and national leaders is only a small prelude to the cooperation between church and state to come, and that the Bible warns against.